Climate Neutrality

Our promise: We care for the trees planted for carbon neutrality until the to be compensated amount of CO2is removed from the atmosphere and the carbon is stored in the wood. That is what our on-site forest engineers and the scientists at the Crowther Lab, ETH Zürich, who monitor our project, stand for.

Under this project, Plant-for-the-Planet is currently planting trees on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. With the help of research by a team of independent scientists, we make sure that every tree planted in context of climate neutrality will absorb 500 kilogram of CO2 - which will be long term bound in wood.
Here are some of the advantages of our current plantation project:

1. Faster growth: The growth of trees at the Yucatan Peninsula is 4 times of that in Germany.2. Cost-Effectiveness: Faster growth of trees lead to faster rate of CO2 binding, making this method of CO2 compensation cost effective.

3. Efficiency: The plantation team, currently consisting of 100 on-ground workers in Mexico, plants and nurtures every tree for just € 1 each, achieving a survival rate of 94%, which is more than four times of that in the region.

4. Scientific backing: The afforestation project is accompanied and scientifically evaluated by the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, including measuring of parameters, such as how amount of the carbon bound by the trees.5. Transparency: Daily reports document the expenses and the progress of the planting. The area is precisely recorded and the individual trees planted are localized per hectare.

6. Fair and sustainable: We offer the on-ground workers above-average social benefits.

7. Looking at the bigger picture - the overall project supports all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and enhances jobs, and prosperity in the communities of the Global South.

Trees and Training

If you go climate-neutral with Plant-for-the-Planet, you invest twice in the future:

1. Tree-planting: To compensate carbon emissions, we plant trees on our planting area on the Yucatán Peninsula. They are also a part of the on-going Trillion Tree Campaign launched by Plant-for-the-Planet.

2. Education and capacity building of children and youth: The project also then supports Plant-for-the-Planet Academies, which are one-day long free peer-training sessions for children and youth, where they are taught about basics of climate change, and trained to become “Climate Justice Ambassadors”.

This empowerment of children and youth enables them to transmit the ideas as multipliers. They give speeches at their schools and at events, i.e. your company’s next event!

You can join the planting action at an academie. Anyone can plant a tree, whether he or she is a child or a CEO!

Help us build and enrich the worldwide network: already more than 67,000 children in 66 countries are officially trained Climate Justice Ambassadors. They are getting more and more!

What is climate neutrality?

There is universal recognition that if we are to realize the central aim of the Paris Agreement to keep a global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels this century, we must all go further and faster in delivering climate action before 2020: https://unfccc.int/climate-action/climate-neutral-now

Climate Neutrality is a concept that aims to offset the greenhouse gas emissions, especially those that cannot be reduced further. The amount paid by the entities (companies, individuals, etc.) is equivalent to amount of the emissions (measured generally in tonnes of carbon di oxide) they want to offset, and is then invested in other balancing activities - in this case, plantation of trees.

However, climate neutrality is an option, addition to the steps that the entity has already taken to reduce its carbon footprint.

A standard process can be broadly outlined as:

1. Measuring carbon emissions: Having a track of one’s carbon footprint, identifying source of emissions and the opportunities to reduce it.

2. Avoiding emissions: Efforts must be made to first avoid emissions, by using sustainable lifestyles, effective utilisation of resources and similar methods.

4. Transition to clean source of energy: Converting from conventional energy sources, to renewable and clean energy sources is also equally important.

5. Finally, the offsetting of remaining unavoidable CO2 emissions: Carbon-offsetting should be deployed only when there are remaining carbon emissions that cannot be reduced further … Trees give us a valuable time joker to reduce our emissions!

Let's close the Paris Ambition Gap through Voluntary Climate Neutrality!

As per UNFCCC, to avoid the worst effects of climate change, science tells us that we must limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius, which is also the central goal of the Paris Agreement. To achieve this objective, relying solely on governmental action will not be sufficient.

Therefore, the need is to measure and cut down greenhouse gas emissions, and for those that cannot be reduced - a potential solution is to offset them. While Paris Agreement put forth an ambition of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, it left us with an Ambition Gap, that can only be filled by strong implementation mechanisms.

We invite you to help close the ambition gap of Paris by voluntary climate neutrality!
The carbon clock is ticking: Science also tells us that at the current level of greenhouse emissions, the “carbon budget” can only keep the 2 degrees limit for next 15 years.

That's why children and youth at Plant-for-the-Planet's are now calling upon the private sector, and companies that are willing to cut down their carbon footprint in addition to their other efforts to be carbon neutral.

Trees are awesome!

Planting trees is the only geoengineering method that has worked for thousands of years, all over the world, reliably and with several co-benefits for humans and other species of the nature. The children and youth at Plant-for-the-Planet have set themselves the goal of motivating humanity to plant a trillion trees.

There is space for a Trillion Trees on Earth!

As per a study conducted by Prof. Crowther, there are 3000 billion trees growing on earth currently. Without competing with settlements or agriculture, there is room for another 1000 billion trees - that can absorb upto 25 per cent of the human-made carbon emissions. This area comprises of lands - where forests once grew - but they were cleared.

Plant-for-the-Planet replants once such area - at the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico - which is on road to become a valuable forest again!

To ensure that the carbon is really bound long term and sustainably, the wood can also be used for durable products - instead of being burnt - so the carbon can be bound for decades longer. The maxim here is sustainable forestry, i.e. the direct reforesting of places where trees were destroyed. The process also creates more jobs - regionally - and the added value is retained with the local communications.